In a Fibre Channel Over Ethernet (FCoE) network formed according to Fabric topology, an Ethernet Node (ENode) is able to acquire information including a Fibre Channel Identifier (FCID) and so on of other ENodes through a name server; however, transmission of an FCoE frame also requires an MAC address. A current name server does not provide MAC address information corresponding to an FCID, and an ENode only knows an MAC address of a Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) to which the ENode is logged in, thus an FCoE frame between two ENodes can only be forwarded through an FCF device, and communication cannot be performed directly by link layer switching. If two ENodes connected by Fabric are able to acquire an MAC address from each other, the two can perform data interaction directly by link switching, thereby achieving higher transmission efficiency.
In addition, in the lossless Ethernet, various devices having a switching function generally implement fast switching by maintaining an MAC-Port table. The MAC table is learned through a source MAC address in a header of a received Ethernet message, and ages regularly. A Fabric Login (FLOGI) virtual link established in an FCoE network will keep a link alive regularly. The MAC table of a keep-alive switching device in a network can be updated by a keep-alive frame sent mutually. However, the keep-alive frame is sent at a relatively long interval, e.g. 8 seconds, or even 90 seconds, and the MAC table cannot be updated fast if a condition including aging of an MAC item or switching of a link and so on occurs during this process.
There is no effective solution for solving the problem in a related technology that communication cannot be directly performed through the link layer.